I can't help but disagree violently with the idea of the conquistador as a special unit. What special features will they have? The ability to spread smallpox thus causing a succession battle and a civil war (the Incan Empire) or a compete lack of morality and the ability to take advantage of a recent war : Cortes and the Tlaxcalans versus Mexica/Aztecs?
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/trave...pconquest.html
library.thinkquest.org/16325/y-conq.html
http://www.isis.csuhayward.edu/alss/...ca/ainca3.html
Disease the greatest conqueror:
smallpox epidemic contributed significantly to Spanish victories in Mexico and Peru:
Mexico: Aztecs suffered from the first smallpox epidemic just as the Spanish were investing Tenochitlán; leader of the Aztec counter-assault and many followers died of smallpox
Peru: smallpox epidemic preceded Pizarro to Peru-no serious resistance to Spanish because of the epidemic
Interpretations :
both sides agreed that the pestilence was a form of divine punishment ;
the Spanish were immune-what could this possibly mean? -
other diseases traveled to North America and South America:
measles, smallpox, influenza
from:www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/PSci/Inst21/demography.htm
The Spanish UU should be the tercio, the shock troop of the day; their defeat at the Battle of Rocroi was the marker of the true end of Spanish hegemony in Europe and the beginning of the rise to Western European hegemony of the French.
The tercio: sites.netscape.net/tercios1/TercioUk/TercioUK.html
Weapons of the Thirty Years' War:
users.erols.com/lnorberg/Weapon.html